Cycle parking in Saitama

I am currently in Saitama, a prefecture of Japan in the Greater Tokyo area. despite being overshadowed by nearby Tokyo, Saitama is a city in its own right and a dense one at that, more so than most cities in the UK. Cycling here is a mainstream mode of transport used by young and old, man and woman alike. There are parked bicycles everywhere.

I have seen very little in the way of cycle parking facilities by UK standards, other than designated areas and structures to support cycles. No-one seems bothered about locking bikes up beyond a rear-wheel lock. These immobilised bicycles can be seen everywhere.

I assume that this area outside a chain restaurant is designed for cycle parking.

I spotted this cycle shelter by a small apartment building at around 16:45. I imagine it is more full after working hours.

This higher-density facility was provided for a slightly larger apartment building.

This alleyway near some fairly low-density (by Japanese city standards) housing is used for bicycle storage.

This space between restaurants and other businesses is used for medium-density cycle parking for customers and staff.

Underneath a Shinkansen train station, the large area is divided into blocks to help passengers find their bikes on their way home. Again, no Sheffield stands, just bikes on kick-stands with rear-wheel locks.

Brompton by air

I decided to try another type of multi-mode travel with the Brompton; bicycle and aeroplane. My existing suitcase is not wide enough to accommodate the Brompton, so after a bit of research on Seven League Boots I decided to opt for the Carradice Folding Bike Case.

Unlike their  excellent saddlebags, the Carradice Folding Bike Case (more of a bag than a case, really) is made from Cordura-type polyester material rather than cotton duck. Whilst I am a fan of cotton duck, the extra weight it would require would not be desirable when using this bag for air travel. However, considering the material used, I feel that this bag is a bit over-priced.

The bag came with no padding, but thankfully it does adhere to gaffer tape quite well, making these stiff foam pieces ideal for protecting the rollers/rack in transit.

The bag is more than sufficiently large to fit any Brompton with a saddle attached, although configurations which differ significantly from stock may not fit. The Seven League Boots post suggested removing the saddle when using the bag for flying due to the risk of damage (particularly to a Brooks saddle) and storing it between the wheels of the folded Brompton. I use the telescopic seat-post, so I will turn the telescoping part of the post around to minimise the number and size of protrusions from the folded package, with the remaining protrusions covered over with bits of foam.

Naturally I removed the clamps from the frame as these were an easy target for damage. I wrapped the clamps up in gaffer tape and stuck them to the frame in the middle of the fold.

As recommended in the Seven League Boots post mentioned before, I taped the saddle into the relatively well protected space in the middle of the folded bike

A D-lock can be locked through the frame to save space, with the gap in the middle of the fold useful for stashing bits like a locking cable. The frame from my T-bag is pushed down the side of the bike in the bag to offer a bit of extra protection as well as making the T-bag itself a less conspicuous, odd-looking piece of hand luggage.

 

The final step in packing the bag is to place your trousers, jumpers, jackets etc into a standard suit bag and wrap it over the top and sides of the bike before zipping it up. This gives a bit more protection to the bike and also means that you don’t use up your entire luggage allowance on a bike. A toiletries bag can easily be seated on top of the folded bike underneath the suit bag.

Add a couple of luggage straps and pack your hand luggage into the frame-less T-bag and you are ready to fly across the world. I’ve unpacked the Brompton at the other end and rather pleasingly, it has faired well. Now all I need to do is get to grips with cycling in a strange new land.

Safety tips for cyclists

Safety advice aimed at cyclists is nothing new, but in my experience it often tends to descend into little more than a motorists’ wish list for cyclist behaviour. Even worse is advice based on the false assumption that law breaking on the part of cyclists is the lead cause of cyclist injuries and fatalities. Instead, I thought it might be worthwhile to share my own experiences in the hope they might be useful to others.

Reading the road

Cycling on UK roads is a baptism of fire and anyone who has been doing it for any length of time will have learned to read the road ahead. The same cannot be said for everyone else. A worrying number of other road users will fail to consider what the road conditions will require of them 100, 50 or even 15 metres ahead of where they currently are. This failure is the root cause of several initially baffling behaviours. It is the reason that motorists will sometimes perform a risky overtake only to have to immediately stop at the end of a queue of traffic which was readily visible when the manoeuvre was started. It is the reason why a motorist may overtake you only to immediately make a left turn, or pull into a roadside parking bay. It is the reason why a motorist may overtake you on a cramped residential street only to immediately stop block your progress to allow an oncoming vehicle to pass, even though had they waited, there would have been sufficient room for you on a bike and the oncoming vehicle to proceed at the same time.

Roundabouts

Sometimes it almost seems as if roundabouts were left behind by an advanced but long lost civilisation and no-one is sure what they were built for or how their builders intended them to be used. The lack of a small set of standard approaches to roundabouts certainly doesn’t help. The rules of roundabouts are fairly straightforward, but there are several things to look out for.

The general principle of giving way to traffic already on the roundabout may not apply to you when you are on your bike if the other party is driving a luxury German car, such as a BMW, Audi or Mercedes-Benz. If you are already on the roundabout and encounter one of these vehicles waiting to get on, you may be expected to give way.

There are some road users who will use the other lane of a multi-lane roundabout regardless of the exit they wish to use. These people pose a risk to you when you are getting on a roundabout, as their road positioning suggests they are intending to leave the roundabout even though this is not the case.

‘Taking the lane’ is an unfortunate necessity on most roundabouts (effectively excluding most people from cycling them) but beware that some motorists will try to bully you to the periphery of the roundabout regardless of which exit you wish to use.

Finally, it is not uncommon to see motorists leave a roundabout whilst still indicating right. The result of this misleading signalling should be that you do not enter the roundabout even though the opportunity was there. However, in areas where this behaviour is particularly prevalent, it is important to beware of this behaviour becoming normalised; you could end up pulling onto a roundabout in front of a car which really is staying on.

Professional drivers

In an ideal world, professional drivers (delivery vans, taxi drivers etc.) and our interactions with them would be exactly that; professional. Sadly, in practice this is often not the case. I can only surmise that when driving becomes a major part of a person’s job they will often become blasé about it and safety suffers as a result. Add to this business models which encourage or even necessitate illegal behaviour and we have a recipe for unpleasant encounters. Thankfully, professional drivers are generally easy to identify by way of their commercial vehicles, so at least you’ll know to expect the worst when you see them. The ease with which commercial vehicles can be identified makes reporting bad driving much easier than with private cars, although typically just as fruitless.

Texting

I have covered this issue before. Thankfully, providing the vehicle is not a pimpmobile with tinted windows, it is at least possible to spot the characteristic position a driver’s head adopts if they are reading from a phone screen whilst driving. Spotting this characteristic tilt a few weeks ago probably prevented a collision between a texting motorist and myself on a roundabout in Wrexham. So engrossed in her texting was this driver that she failed to even register my loud subsequent significant list of graphic expletives.

Indicators

As mentioned above for roundabouts, indicators are not to be trusted. Most common is the  lack of indication by a driver about to attempt a manoeuvre, but it is not uncommon to see a driver indicating the wrong way, leaving an indicator on long, long after a turn has been made or indicating a turn of a particular direction several opportunities to make a turn in that direction prior to the one they wish to take. It is especially useful to be distrustful of turn signals when pulling out of a side road; just because the driver on the road you wish to join is indicating to turn down your road often doesn’t mean they actually will.

If there are any other tips or seemingly bizarre driver behaviours anyone feels I have missed, please share them through the comments.

Cheshire Police and Crime Commissioner election

It has been around two-and-a-half weeks since I decided to attempt to directly engage with democracy by writing to the five candidates standing in the Cheshire Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC) elections:

• Ainsley Arnold (Liberal Democrat)
• Louise Bours (UK Independence Party)
• John Dwyer (Conservative)
• Sarah Flannery (independent candidate)
• John Stockton (Labour)

In order to ask them about whether, as Cheshire PCC, they would:

• Protect vulnerable road users such as pedestrians and cyclists by ensuring that negligent drivers who kill or maim vulnerable road users are properly pursued and investigated by the Police
• Tackle so-called minor motoring offences, such as speeding, red-light jumping, pavement driving and smartphone use whilst driving which diminish safety (both real and perceived) for vulnerable road users.
• Deal with the blight of illegal and anti-social parking, which is particularly prevalent in Chester where there is currently close to zero enforcement against motorists who obstruct pavements and park in restricted areas.

Despite the widespread apathy towards these elections, only one of the candidates I wrote to replied at all. To my surprise, the candidate who replied was John Dwyer, the Conservative Party candidate:

“I realise that your focus is on cyclists and pedestrians but I feel there is a wider picture relating to all road users.

The vast majority of motorists are decent hard working law abiding people like you and me. However, there is a small number who, quite frankly, don’t give a thought to others on the road. These are people who don’t tax and insure their cars, who drink and drive, who take drugs and drive and who regularly break speed limits, particularly in residential areas. There is also a minority [sic] who park carelessly causing obstruction in the way you have described in your letter.

Where these issues are presenting themselves I would want the police and other enforcement agencies, such as local authorities, to take steps to prevent the committing of the offences in the first place and to take appropriate enforcement steps where the preventative measures have failed to work. The Crown Prosecution Service has told me that if the Police and Crime Commissioner indicates to them that this is a particular issue in a certain area then they will judge enforcement to be ‘in the public interest’ and not dismiss prosecution as an option.

It is my intention to ensure that we have robust processes in place to provide me with the appropriate information to support the positive action I know you are seeking.”

I have not heard from any other the other candidates, other than Sarah Flannery‘s representative on Twitter, who led me to believe she may have intended to reply but has not done so at the time of writing. I can only surmise that the other candidates saw my letter was to do with pedestrian and cyclist issues and decided that it was not worth their time.

I was also interested to see that Rod King of Twenty’s Plenty had engaged with Louise Bours, the UKIP candidate to see if she was supportive of the campaign. The response given is quite telling. Unprompted, whilst professing some support for 20 mph, she chooses to defend the criminal behaviour of motorists who choose to ignore speed limits on dual carriageways.

Honestly, my attempt to engage with the democratic process, and the corresponding lack of interest from four of the five candidates has left me feeling rather disaffected with the whole thing.  However, I urge you all to go out and vote tomorrow, even if you just spoil your ballot paper.

A standards-based approach to roads

Dearest readers, I’ve got a bit of a confession to make; I’ve been learning how to drive a car. Don’t worry though, I’m not planning on buying one or giving up on cycling. In fact, one of the main reasons is  (as I have written about before) there is an awful lot of discrimination against non-drivers when applying for jobs which do not require any driving whatsoever. I will write in more detail about the experience of learning to drive in another post.

Whilst first-hand experience has only enhanced my belief that our current approach to road design always favours the convenience of motorists over the safety of all other road users (after years of UK cycling, driving is really easy) there is one aspect which remained the same whether cycling or driving; the inconsistency of the road experience. Many of the routes I have driven down on driving lessons are the sorts I would usually avoid when travelling by bike (such as the A55) which has allowed me to see areas of the road network which I have traditionally been effectively excluded from.

Grosvenor Court Roundabout

For example, in the centre of Chester there is the Grosvenor Court square roundabout where the dual carriageway surrounding the town centre meets the Foregate Street (the end Chester’s ‘shared space’ main shopping street) and City Road, which leads to the train station. The lane markings on this roundabout highlight the inconsistency in UK road design.

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Entering this roundabout from Foregate Street, you are encouraged to use the left lane for taking the first exit or travelling straight on. The second lane is straight on only, with convention dictating that this lane is used when the left lane is busy.

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Entering the roundabout in the left lane, with the intention to go straight on, you are then confronted with this. You must move into the middle lane to go straight on. Hopefully the person in the right lane knows not to enter this lane.

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The two lanes are now both marked as straight on. Best practice dictates that if possible you should stay in the left lane.

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Once again, a middle lane opens up. This time it is for the users of the right-hand lane to use, presumably for the purposes of traffic stacking.

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Here, the left hand lane can be used to take the left exit, or to go straight on. Once again it is best practice to where possible, to stick to the left when going straight on here. In this image it appears that the driver of the silver hatchback has become confused by the layout of this particular roundabout and is in the process of changing lanes.

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This is probably why the driver became confused, the left lane allows traffic to take the left exit or go straight on. There are four traffic lanes by this point.

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This time, neither of the two left-hand lanes allow traffic to proceed straight on. Instead, the left two lanes are directed onto the A51, a short urban dual carriageway lined with various businesses.

Hoole Way Roundabout

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This is the approach to Hoole Way roundabout from St. Oswalds Way (West). Here the left lane is for the exclusive use of traffic taking the first exit, with straight on traffic sent to the right-hand lane.

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Here we can see that the right-hand lane can be used for taking the right-hand lane of the first exit onto Hoole Way, another short urban dual carriageway, or to stay on the roundabout in the leftmost of the three lanes at the traffic lights.

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This lane is labelled with a straight arrow, indicating that traffic using this lane may proceed straight on. However, in this case, this is actually referring to leaving the roundabout at the next exit, St Oswalds Way (East)

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Both of these roundabouts have significant internal inconsistencies in their design, in addition to differing from each other. Despite this, they are actually next to each other on Chester’s bizarre inner ring road (bizarre because despite it being a dual carriageway, not one of the roads feeding in or out of the ring road is a dual carriageway).

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The result of these inconsistencies is confusion. Whilst locals will become familiar with the particular peculiarities of the roads, junctions and roundabouts in their area, those visiting an area, or who do not frequently use a particular road, junction or roundabout will not be. The non-standardised nature of the design of roads, junctions and roundabouts in the UK means that experience of other roads, junctions or roundabouts on the road network will not necessarily prepare a person for using any other road, junction or roundabout.

Add to this distraction, lapses in concentration, poor maintenance, vastly different modes of transport sharing the same infrastructure and good old fashioned incompetence and we have the British road network, a recipe for a disaster which claims thousands of lives each year and which effectively restricts the choice of transport for many to only the most heavily armoured modes.

I decided to write this piece during an ISO 9001 training session. Whilst not exactly riveting stuff, it impressed upon me the value of consistency. Most of the problems with the UK road network find their root in this lack of consistency, standardisation is sorely lacking in almost all aspects of road design. This is why there are inconsistencies between the roundabouts examined above; there is no standard[1][2][3] to make road features such as roundabouts consistent internally, let alone consistent with with each other. The result is that a road user has no idea what to expect when encountering a roundabout or large junction for the first time.

This is also why we have little cycle infrastructure, with much of what has been provided being less than useless; there is currently no requirement to provide cycle infrastructure on any road and where planners choose to add it, there is no standard to ensure cycle infrastructure is consistent, safe or functional. All that exists is guidance which offers generally poor solutions and is easily ignored by highways engineers and local authorities. This lack of standardisation makes cycle infrastructure especially vulnerable to corner cutting and thoughtless, dangerous design choices based on the whims and prejudices of the individuals responsible for a given project. The situation is little better when it comes to pedestrian infrastructure.

Before I took driving lessons, I wanted the UK to adopt a Dutch approach to road design because I was a cyclist. Having experienced the roads from the perspective of a motorist, I  want it just as much. Regardless of mode, the road user experience needs to be consistent in order to be safe. This consistency means making sure road users know what to expect when tackling a particular type of junction, it means that the safety and convenience of a particular group of road users can’t be subordinated (or ignored altogether) based on the whims of individual planners or councillors. Regardless of how you travel, we should all be able to agree that it’s time for a standards-based approach to road design.

Eric in an ideological Pickle over parking

I was interested to read about Eric Pickles’ statement about local authorities and car parking charges on the recently resurrected Crap Waltham Forest blog.

Councils will have to declare the total paid by drivers to park in both on-street and off-street bays, after new government figures showed local authorities’ total income from parking hitting £1.27 billion last year. 

Ministers believe the new “transparency” drive is vital to ensure local politicians can be properly held to account by motorists – and to help reverse the decline of the country’s high streets, including the closure of businesses. 

Earlier this year a government report conducted by Mary Portas, the retail expert, identified that high cost of parking as one of the reasons why shoppers were deserting high streets in favour of out-of-town centres where parking is often free. 

Mr Pickles said: “We are ending an era of bureaucratic accountability and replacing it with a more open era of democratic accountability. It is right that taxpayers get to see how town halls spend their hard earned taxes so they can properly hold local politicians to account. 

“As part of that we will expose a great council cash cow cover-up, unmasking punitive parking practices that hit residents in the pocket. We’re calling time on the billion pound local war against motorists – now, more than ever, we need to see the back of this shopping tax and encourage more people onto the high street.” 

Town halls are supposed to control parking to improve traffic flow and stop gridlock occurring, and they are prohibited by law from using their powers in this area simply to boost their income. However, ministers and their advisers believe a growing number of councils seek to get round these rules by earmarking the cash raised for other transport projects.

Mr Pickles, the Conservative Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government seems to be suggesting that it is wrong for councils to charge for car parking on their sites at rates which allow them to turn a profit and that these rates should therefore be reduced.

This statement confused me immensely for several reasons. Firstly, as Conservative minister, should Mr Pickles not believe that it is wrong for local authorities to use their position to offer parking facilities at prices with which the private sector could never compete? Surely the idea of government crowding out the private sector when it comes to the provision of car parking facilities if at odds with the Conservative ideology. Naturally, the first step in remedying this would be for local authorities to increase their parking charges to allow the more dynamic and efficient private sector to step in.

Secondly, as Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, surely Mr Pickles should be aware that accommodating to many private motor vehicles in town centres contributes to their downfall. Shopkeepers grossly overestimate the amount of their customers who arrive by car, falling to see that, in town centres, pedestrians, cyclists and public transport users are usually better customers.

Thirdly, providing subsidised parking in town centres tends to damage town centres by excluding those who wish to, or have no other option than to arrive by different modes of travel. The town centre of my native Rochdale is a good example of this; surrounded on three sides by dual carriageways Rochdale’s local authority has done everything possible to accommodate private motor vehicles in the centre of town. The result of this is that the centre of Rochdale us barely accessible by non-motorised means. The tragedy of Rochdale is that even though it’s local authority sacrificed the safety and convenience of pedestrians and cyclists to benefit motorists, it has not produced an otherwise-successful town centre. It is no coincidence that Rochdale has one of the highest levels of unoccupied shop units, with even McDonalds giving up on it. Successful town and city centres rely on a concentrating a large number of people in a relatively small area and put simply this is never going to be compatible with the car. Once people have been coerced onto using the car, it is a trivial matter to go somewhere which seems less of a hell-hole, such as the Trafford Centre. At least they have a McDonalds. 

Fourthly is Eric Pickles’ pet project, localism;

The Localism Bill will herald a ground-breaking shift in power to councils and communities overturning decades of central government control and starting a new era of people power.

 

“It is the centrepiece of what this Government is trying to do to fundamentally shake up the balance of power in this country. For too long, everything has been controlled from the centre - and look where it’s got us. Central government has kept local government on a tight leash, strangling the life out of councils in the belief that bureaucrats know best.

 

By getting out of the way and letting councils and communities run their own affairs we can restore civic pride, democratic accountability and economic growth – and build a stronger, fairer Britain. It’s the end of the era of big government: laying the foundations for the Big Society.”

Somehow this seems slightly at odd with central government interfering with councils’ running of their car parking operations.

Finally (and building upon point three) is choice. Twenty-five per cent of households don’t have access to a car. Many of these people are hard-working strivers who want to be better off and so do without a car, at least for the foreseeable future. It is simply not possible to further accommodate private motor vehicles in our town centres without further diminishing the experience of those travelling by other modes. Should people not be able to choose how they travel? It seems at odds with Conservative values to subsidise one mode of transport far above all others, as it coerces people into acquiring the means to travel in that manner, and to use it for almost all trips. Is influencing transport choice in this way not the very opposite of the choice which is so valued by Conservatives? Surely the right thing to do would be to treat all modes of transport equally (perhaps with the advantages and disadvantages of each taken onto account) in order to give people back the choice of how to travel. Since motor transport has seen decades of generous government subsidy, it would make sense to start with massive investments in walking and cycling infrastructure.

Unless I’m reading too much into this, and it is actually just a cynical exercise in which our Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government panders to the myth of the victimised motorist to boost his popularity.

Helmets on Heads

I found a new campaign via Twitter; Helmets on Heads. It is run by helmet and bicycle manufacturer Schwinn and an organisation called Think First (think a US Headway) which advertises itself as the US’s “National Injury Prevention Foundation.”

“The ThinkFirst National Injury Prevention Foundation’s award-winning, evidence-based programs are aimed at helping people learn to reduce their risk for injury.”

Despite this quote from the Think First website, this particular campaign aims to promote greater helmet use. From the campaign’s ”The Facts” page:

1. In 2009, there were an estimated 418,700 emergency room visits and nearly 28,000 inpatient hospital stays for bicycle-related injuries.
2. Over the past several years, roughly 1 in 10 bicyclists killed were not wearing helmets.
3. Nearly 70% of all fatal bicycle crashes involve head injuries.
4. Bicycle helmets have been estimated to reduce the risk for head injuries by 85%.
5. Despite these facts, only 20-25% of all bicyclists wear bicycle helmets.

Fact number one doesn’t really tell the reader much because it is not put into any kind of context. 418,700 sounds like a lot, but it would be nice to see how this number compares to the number of pedestrian-related injuries or trouser-related injuries.

Fact three sounds believable enough and although this statistic has little to do with cycle helmets, the context is is placed in cleverly makes it appear to support the argument for greater use of cycle helmets.

Fact four seems oddly familiar, but it is at odds with more rigorous meta analyses such as Rune Elvik’s efficacy review, which places the benefit of helmet wearing around ‘net zero,’ with earlier similar studies placing the benefit of helmet wearing around the ‘negligible’ mark. This appears to be the only fact on the list which is outright dishonest.

Facts two and five are best taken together; the 20-25% of US cyclists who wear cycle helmets appear to account for 90% of the cycling fatalities in the USA.

This list is one of the most interesting uses of facts I have seen in a long time. Other than fact four, which is outright bogus, the other facts presented seem likely to be sound. However, these facts are not used to make an argument in the conventional sense (Ie: by supporting a claim) they appear instead to be used as window-dressing; largely unrelated to the cause but when taken at face value and presented in the right way, they appear to support it. Let’s take another look at that window-dressing, but with a different slant:

1. In 2009, there were an estimated 418,700 emergency room visits and nearly 28,000 inpatient hospital stays for bicycle-related injuries.
2. Over the past several years, roughly 9 out of 10 bicyclists killed were wearing helmets.
3. Nearly 70% of all fatal bicycle crashes involve head injuries.
4. On average, bicycle helmets have been estimated to provide no overall benefit to their wearers in the event of a crash.
5. Despite these facts, 20-25% of bicyclists still wear bicycle helmets.

Ok, so I changed fact four because of the bogus nature of the original #4. More or less the same list of facts now look like an argument against cycle helmets and I didn’t even have to lie.

The campaign also provides support materials for teachers:

Q. What is the most important thing you can do to protect yourself when riding a bike?
A. Wear a helmet! The impact of a crash is absorbed by the helmet, rather than your head and brain. Talk about the brain, how easily it can become injured, and how recovering from a brain injury can be difficult or impossible, depending on the extent of the injury. Protecting your brain is important!

I agree entirely that protecting one’s brain is indeed important. This is why, especially when forced to share space with motorised traffic, I would suggest that the most important thing to do to protect yourself when riding a bike would be to ensure your bike (especially the brakes) is in a good state of repair and that you are aware of the hazards in your surroundings so that you can take appropriate action. However, it looks like I was wrong, all that is needed is to slap on one of Schwinn’s fine cycle helmets and all will be well.

Obligatory yearly lighting post

October, only a few weeks left until we fiddle around with the clocks so that suddenly everyone finds themselves riding home in complete darkness where before it was still reasonably light. As has become traditional at this time of year, I am writing a post about bicycle lighting. Hopefully each year this obligatory post will become more useful as my own experience with this equipment increases.

B&M Lumotec Retro (Front: 17 lux Halogen)

My first dynamo lamp. Purchased shortly after the DL-1, I was mostly attracted to this lamp because unlike most of the battery lamps I had seen, it actually went well with the aesthetic of the bike. Entirely sufficient for urban riding, and fairly adequate for slower riding on unlit paths, it was much better than any battery lamps I had used at this time. The automatic on/off via light sensor was a pleasing feature, which I discovered also controlled a rear light connected through the front lamp (later discovered to be a standard feature for lamps with sensors). The sensor also helped to mitigate the main limitation of this lamp; the halogen bulb. Unlike LEDs the lifespan of this type of light source is something which needs to be considered, so it is important not to just run the light all the time. This lamp was eventually retired in favour of the Philips SafeRide.

The P-type Brompton came with the basic Lumotec lamp, which is the same as the Retro but without the chrome-esque shell, stand-light or automatic on/off via light sensor. Very basic but adequate for urban use, although I’d recommend a battery companion to substitute for the stand-light.

B&M D-Toplight Plus (Rear: LED)

My first rear dynamo light, added to the DL-1 a few months after the Lumotec Retro discussed above. The light output from this model is a single point source which is not diffused as well as on other models I have tried since, but otherwise it performs its job perfectly well and is still in service on the DL-1.

B&M Lumotec Lyt Plus (Front: 25 lux LED)

Originally bought for the Yuba Mundo, coupled with a Basil Nordlicht bottle dynamo, this lamp was later moved to the Brompton for use with a hub dynamo. Being designed for a bottle dynamo, this lamp lacked the automatic on/off via light sensor of the Lumotec Retro, but made up for it with a ver noticeable boost in light output, combined with a much more useful beam shape. Sadly, the rigours of small, high-pressure wheels proved a bit too much for this lamp and the stand-light feature was lost, despite my initial success in restoring it. I have seen the current version of this lamp used on larger bikes with great success, so don’t let this experience put you off, just don’t pair it with a Brompton or similar small-wheeled bike. The Lyt is currently back on the Yuba Mundo, where it is paired with my old battery LED lamp to compensate for the lack of stand-light.

Spanninga Brompton (Rear: LED)

Branded by Brompton but made by Spanninga, this light is similar to the D-Toplight plus, except the design diffuses the output of the single LED more effectively producing better side visibility and generally being less irritating for following traffic. As was the case with the Lyt, the stand-light feature of this light failed, but unlike the Lyt, my attempt to fix it is still holding up nicely. Whilst sold as a Brompton accessory, this light can easily be coupled with any bike with a 50mm spaced rack mount. This light is now been put to work on Ms C’s Brompton.

Philips Saferide (Front: 60 lux LED)

Put simply, the best lamp I have ever used. The Saferide lacks some of the useful features of its nearest competitors, such as automatic on/off via light sensor or daylight running lights, but it makes up for this with its superior illumination. The beam is wider than the B&M Cyo, providing a similar level of illumination over a wider area which is particularly useful for turning. This lamp puts out a broken ‘halo’ which is wider than the beam and allows hazards such as foliage to be spotted ahead, although others have reported this ‘halo’ as an irritation. I took it out for a spin with a friend who has an Edelux, and the Saferide is easily its equal. The only major downside to this lamp is that it uses a non-standard bracket, meaning it can’t be paired with a Brompton without some sort of modification/bodging.

B&M Cyo T (Front: 60 lux LED)

The Cyo is not quite as good as the Philips Saferide, but it is a pretty close second. The ‘T’ version comes with daylight running lights and automatic on/off via light sensor. It also uses a standard mount which allowed me to use it on the Brompton. The daylight running lights are designed to increase daytime visibility for the benefit of other traffic, although as I am the one on the bike I have no idea how much of a benefit this actually provides. Come nightfall, the daylight running LEDs are dimmed and the main beam is turned up to full. The resulting beam is great, but a bit narrower than the Saferide, putting it at a disadvantage for cornering. For a Brompton I would recommend. For other bikes, consider the Saferide first.

B&M Toplight Flat Plus (Rear: LED)

I got this at the same time as the Cyo, but didn’t actually get around to writing about it. This particular light is cheap and cheerful, using a single LED without the same efforts being made to diffuse the light as with the D-Toplight or the Spanninga Brompton lights. As a result, side visibility is poorer. This light is currently fitted to the Yuba Mundo, along with the permanent rack-mount battery light which originally came with the DL-1 which can be switched on to provide a bit more light at the back should it be needed. There are definitely better lights available from other manufacturers at around this price point.

B&M Toplight Line Plus Braketec (Rear: LED)

The Line Plus diffuses the light from two LEDs into a line which is supposed to make estimating your distance more easy for following traffic. I’m not sure how much effect it has in practice, but the light is certainly very bright and seems to be more diffuse than in the other lights I’ve used. This particular version of the Line Plus has Braketec; a signal processor detects the change in AC frequency when you slow down rapidly and increases the intensity of the light for a few seconds. I am unsure as to how useful this feature is in practice, but I think it is a pretty neat idea. This is the best of the rear lights I have tried, and I would recommend either the standard Line Plus or the Braketec version depending on whether or not the idea of a bicycle brake light appeals to you.

As always, the development of dynamo lights continues its onward march. Presumably in response to the Philips Saferide, B&M will be releasing a new front lamp at the end of 2012, the Luxos. I have no first hand experience of this lamp, but it certainly looks impressive on paper; 70 lux output as standard with the option of a handlebar-mounted push button which can be used to briefly illuminate the stand-light to full intensity when stopped, operate a 90 lux floodlight when in motion during darkness and to switch to flashing mode under daylight running. There is also the option of USB charging, which would be a welcome alternative to current homebrew options or prohibitively expensive add-ons such as the E-werk. The beam shots provided by B&M look promising, but I am still looking forward to seeing some unbiased reviews.

Of course there are plenty of other dynamo lighting options out there which I have not yet tried myself, but I hope that this post if of some use to those currently looking into trying dynamo lighting this winter, or upgrading from the set-up currently used.

TfGM’s Oxford Road corridor changes risk the lives of cyclists

The forthcoming Oxford Road bus corridor in Manchester is to be accompanied by a series of changes to the surrounding roads, including Upper Brook Street and Upper Lloyd Street. In their current form, the changes offer pitifully little for pedestrians and are potentially lethal for cyclists. In a consultation found here, the proposed changes to the layouts of these roads can be seen in detailed the detailed plans found here.

The specific details of what will be offered for cyclists on the relatively short section of Oxford Road from which general motor traffic is to be excluded will not be shared in any detail until 2013. This makes the current consultation relatively useless as we are prevented from seeing what may or may not be gained in exchange for the significant reduction in cyclists’ safety on the surrounding roads. Even in the unlikely event that both the short section of Oxford Road from which private motor vehicles are to be excluded from, and the remainder of this important route are to be brought up to something resembling Dutch standards, as unlikely as this would be, this does not excuse the significant increase in danger posed by the redesign of the surrounding roads, which cyclists would still have to use.

Here we see where Upper Brook Street meets Grosvenor Street. The protected contra-flow cycle lane on Grosvenor street, whilst not perfect was a welcome step in the right direction. Sadly the hideously botched Toucan crossing solution for cyclists where Grosvenor Street looks set to remain. A missed opportunity to make this unfinished bit of infrastructure, still one of the most notable in Manchester, into something genuinely fit for purpose.

Under the present layout, this is a far North as traffic can travel into the city, however the proposals will make Upper Brook Street two way as far as Portland Street for the first time in decades. Truly a step in the wrong direction.

Plymouth Grove is to have advisory cycle lanes added to it for possibly as much as 100 metres southbound. As risible as this is, the bigger issue is that the motorway sliproad geometry where Plymouth Grove peels off from Upper Brook Street remains, placing cyclists continuing along Upper Brook Street in completely avoidable danger of a left-hook.

In a show of contempt for both cyclists and pedestrians, this overly-wide section of road is to have its southbound pavement converted into shared use between Plymouth grove and Grafton Street. From this point southwards, Upper Brook Street is to have one additional lane squeezed into the existing space. This extra lane it switches use to the opposite direction of traffic roughly every signalised junction. I used to live near here and I couldn’t count the number of dangerously close overtakes I endured using the current two-lane arrangement. This area also sees a great deal of pedestrian traffic due to the hospital and University, yet the proposed changes (or rather lack of improvements to existing dire facilities such as crossings) show a complete disregard for the needs and convenience of pedestrians. 

As the extra motor vehicle lanes South of this point are not continuous in one direction, it will not create any extra vehicle capacity, instead encouraging motorists to dangerously speed through the sections where the road is two lanes before forming a jam immediately after the lights where two lanes are forced to merge back into one. This unnecessary extra merging will simply result in additional collisions between cars without providing any time benefit to motorists, whilst the additional lane will necessitate lane narrowing which will bring cars and cycles into conflict, making an increase in the number of injuries and fatalities an inevitability should the proposed designs be implemented. TfGM’s designs for this section of Upper Brook Street in particular will force cyclists and motor vehicles into even closer conflict. I have little doubt that, if implemented, these designs will lead to the deaths of cyclists.

Despite Upper Brook Street seeing significant amounts of pedestrian traffic, the proposal does nothing to facilitate this whatsoever, with existing anti-pedestrian junction geometries and multi-stage crossings requiring pedestrians to deviate repeatedly from desire lines remaining in place. Where additional crossing are to be provided, such as at Brunswick Street, pedestrians are treated with contempt; forced to cross via a ludicrous number of stages so as not to inconvenience motorists coming onto Upper Brook Street from popular residential rat-runs. Cyclists and pedestrians are to be brought into conflict between Plymouth Grove and Grafton Street by the lazy conversion of the inappropriate-width footway to ‘shared use’ in order to allow an unjustifiable three-lane stack at the junction between Upper Brook Street and Grafton Street. This junction, separating the Manchester Royal Infirmary, blood bank, flats and the University of Manchester Medical School sees a significant amount of foot traffic, making the atrocious treatment of pedestrians by the proposed design at this point inexcusable.

The proposed changes to Upper Brook Street in particular represent a potentially lethal attempt to squeeze ever more private cars into the same amount of space. In addition to the increase in fatalities and injuries, many cyclists will be intimidated off these roads entirely, either continuing to cycle but on the pavement, causing problems for pedestrians, or switching to another, less desirable mode of transport. Where cycle infrastructure is proposed, such as Booth Street West and Higher Cambridge Street, it is of the same kind which has been shown time and time again to fail to meet the needs of cyclists for both safety and convenience; advisory cycle lanes and ASLs. Advisory cycle lanes are generally less than useless, they are frequently blocked by legally parked cars and routinely abandon their users at junctions, anywhere where the road design becomes confusing or complex or where the road starts to narrow and cyclists might genuinely need some additional protection from the motor vehicles which have been brought into close proximity with them. In the few places where cycle infrastructure is proposed in the current designs they are simply paint on the carriageway or lazy footway ‘conversions’. At junctions, turning geometries are not tightened up at all (as is commonplace in The Netherlands and Denmark) meaning left turning vehicles can perform turns at higher speeds, increasing the chances of a ‘left-hook’ collision with a cyclist, which are often fatal for the cyclist.

In addition to the problems caused for pedestrians by ill-conceived shard use paths as between Plymouth Grove and Grafton Street and the risk of overall increased pavement cycling, the few additional measures included supposedly to benefit pedestrians have been done in a manner which shows utter contempt for the value of pedestrians’ time and the quality of their experience of walking. The increase number of vehicle lanes will increase noise and pollution endured by pedestrians, cyclists and residents, which make the already formidable barrier presented by the road even more difficult for pedestrians to overcome.

These designs need to be changed as a matter of urgency. In their current form they represent a disaster waiting to happen.

In appreciation of Andrew Mitchell

Until a few days ago, I had no idea that Andrew Mitchell, the chief whip of the Conservative Party, rode a bike. I imagine that his experience of cycling is much the same as it is for anyone, involving a significant amount of pretending that, rather than riding a bike, you are in fact driving a car.

‘Pretend you’re a car’ is a pretty good description of the UK cycling experience, but not perfect. Whilst cyclists are expected to ride on (and pay for) roads designed exclusively around the requirements and limitations of motor vehicle traffic, expected to accept all the same responsibilities as operators of motor vehicles and obey rules, signs and traffic signals which exist in their current form (or in their entirety) because of motor vehicles, cyclists are routinely pilloried when they break the same rules which motorists routinely enjoy having a blind eye turned to, such as travelling on pavements & ignoring traffic signals.

Even when cyclists manage not to fall foul of this system and pull off a sufficiently convincing car impression, under certain circumstances, they may then find themselves taking flak for failing to pretend to be a pedestrian.

Andrew Mitchell may not have intended to become a martyr, he may even have just been a man who, after being forced to put on his best car impression just to go about his business, simply snapped when Police officers didn’t understand why he wanted them to open the huge motor vehicle security gate at Downing Street. Many people won’t understand the pressures which come with being forced to pretend you are something you are not, or may feel that his outburst was inappropriate. However, for highlighting the desperate need for a fair deal for cyclists, for dedicated infrastructure for cyclists here in the UK; Andrew Mitchell, I salute you.